to
the demands of his Parliament; on the contrary, the Prussian army is, in
times of peace, two hundred thousand strong, and can, in case of need,
be at once trebled; moreover, soldiers must take an oath of allegiance
to the king, not, however, to the constitution. Of this army the king is
the head, and with it under his control he can feel tolerably secure
against the danger of a popular outbreak. Again, the English
revolutionists had little to fear from Continental interference;
Prussia, on the contrary, is so situated that a revolution there could
hardly fail to provoke neighboring monarchies to assist in putting it
down. There is no such oppression weighing the people down that they
would be willing to run this risk in an attempt to remove it. Again, the
Liberals hope, and not without reason, that they will eventually secure
what they wish by peaceable means. There is little doubt that, if they
pursue a moderate course, neither resorting to violence nor threatening
to do so, themselves avoiding all violations of the constitution, while
compelling the Government, in case it will not yield, to commit such
violations openly, their cause will gradually grow so strong that the
king will ultimately see the hopelessness of longer resisting it. Or,
once more, even if the present king, whose self-will is such that he may
possibly persevere in his present course through his reign, does not
yield, it is understood that the heir apparent is inclined to adopt a
more liberal policy whenever he ascends the throne, an event which
cannot be very long distant. Were he supposed fully to sympathize with
his father, the danger of a violent solution of the difficulty would be
greater. But, as the case stands, it may not be considered strange if
the conflict lasts several years longer without undergoing any essential
modification.

There is no prospect that the dissension will be ended by mutual
concessions. This might be done, if mutual confidence existed between
the contending parties; but of such confidence there is a total lack. So
great is the estrangement that the original occasion of it is lost sight
of. Neither party cares so much about securing the success of its
favorite measures as about defeating the measures of its opponent.
Either the possibility of such a relation of the king to the Parliament
was not entertained when the constitution was drawn up, or it is a great
deficiency that no provision was made for it; or (as we sh